Thanks for nothing Anet "Big Balance Update"

[WizardBro.4510]

Thanks for the "BIG BALANCE UPDATE" all you did was remove cd cooldowns off traits and give it to skills at base and changed actually nothing. 0 Willbender changes in spvp despite being the WORST new elite spec introduced into the game. You might as well said we're just removing cd traits and adding them to skills at base. Ah ah ahh but not really cause now there are bare bones trash traits like pierce the light will slow enemies when you use a trap hot garbage. thanks for the interesting reworks you promised that didn't happen. It's really cool of you to keep these devs on that change NOTHING about the game. Thanks for not touching catalyst or tempest cause these overtuned broken specs really didn't need changing kekw. 

We appreciate all the "Hard Work" that went into this patch guys. Well played. With changed like this surely your new "Expansion model" that aren't really expansions will work out and make you tons of money I mean make you pump out more cash shop skins not actual game changes. Sorry I almost thought you made changes to your game that mattered. 

[Sonork.2916]

I like the cooldown reductions.  No seemingly big changes otherwise.   

Though I find it funny they specifically went out of their way to not reduce the cooldown on the DH Trap, Light's Judgement, after reducing all other traps by the old %.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Sonork.2916

[otto.5684]

Talking from pve, ya, removing the CDs is good. Several of these skills are used without the CD traits, and now will be more viable. However, some of these traits are now kinda useless, since the CD reduction was the main reason to pick them to begin with.

However, no address to anything WB related. Off hand sword to remain terrible forever. 
 

PvP. “Improvements to FB over the last few patches.” Loooooooooooool? Did anyone in Anet play FB in spvp in the last 3 years? DH, WB and none dps core will still remain mid.

[wolfyrik.2017]

15 hours ago, WizardBro.4510 said:

Thanks for the "BIG BALANCE UPDATE" all you did was remove cd cooldowns off traits and give it to skills at base and changed actually nothing. 0 Willbender changes in spvp despite being the WORST new elite spec introduced into the game. You might as well said we're just removing cd traits and adding them to skills at base. Ah ah ahh but not really cause now there are bare bones trash traits like pierce the light will slow enemies when you use a trap hot garbage. thanks for the interesting reworks you promised that didn't happen. It's really cool of you to keep these devs on that change NOTHING about the game. Thanks for not touching catalyst or tempest cause these overtuned broken specs really didn't need changing kekw. 

We appreciate all the "Hard Work" that went into this patch guys. Well played. With changed like this surely your new "Expansion model" that aren't really expansions will work out and make you tons of money I mean make you pump out more cash shop skins not actual game changes. Sorry I almost thought you made changes to your game that mattered. 

I mean, I don't know if i'd call it the worst? Untamed still exists. TBF you probably forgot about untamed, most people do, and tbh I hate mechanist above all of them. For me it ranks about 3rd worst.

[shib.1369]

Hfb's pretty happy though.. Advance, SYG, FmW, Bow of Truth baseline cd reductions is pretty kitten sick.

[Massimoni.9453]

Also don't forget how the last patch nuked cFB and qFB damage so hard that both builds get outclassed by basically every alternative there is to them - which in turn makes both builds obsolete in 99,9% of situations - and they apparently feel like that is totally fine seeing how this patch does nothing to fix this.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

On 6/9/2023 at 4:46 PM, WizardBro.4510 said:

Thanks for the "BIG BALANCE UPDATE" all you did was remove cd cooldowns off traits and give it to skills at base and changed actually nothing. 0 Willbender changes in spvp despite being the WORST new elite spec introduced into the game. You might as well said we're just removing cd traits and adding them to skills at base. Ah ah ahh but not really cause now there are bare bones trash traits like pierce the light will slow enemies when you use a trap hot garbage. thanks for the interesting reworks you promised that didn't happen. It's really cool of you to keep these devs on that change NOTHING about the game. Thanks for not touching catalyst or tempest cause these overtuned broken specs really didn't need changing kekw. 

We appreciate all the "Hard Work" that went into this patch guys. Well played. With changed like this surely your new "Expansion model" that aren't really expansions will work out and make you tons of money I mean make you pump out more cash shop skins not actual game changes. Sorry I almost thought you made changes to your game that mattered. 

Nah fk that, DH got some sick buffs in PvP. CD reduction on Contemplation of Purity is sick and now you can run Soaring Devastation or Dulled Senses(huge synergy with Zealot's Agression)  instead of that stoopid trap trait. DH is going to PUMP!

I only have insight to DH, but I'm sure the CD reductions opened a lot of new build paths for other specs as well.

Edited June 10, 2023 by WhoWantsAHug.3186

[mikko.4013]

The future changes of "Weighty Terms" trait looks pretty bad for quick FB (be it HFB or qFB). I am very concerned about how difficult quickness uptime will be.

[shib.1369]

4 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

The future changes of "Weighty Terms" trait looks pretty bad for quick FB (be it HFB or qFB). I am very concerned about how difficult quickness uptime will be.

On hfb you overcap a lot right now, even without alacrity and FmW, from just using solace and burning all potence charges off cd.
Weighty terms change will only affect those who save the final potence charge.

Qfb is another story however.

[Hauwlyn.8051]

21 hours ago, shib.1369 said:

On hfb you overcap a lot right now, even without alacrity and FmW, from just using solace and burning all potence charges off cd.
Weighty terms change will only affect those who save the final potence charge.

Qfb is another story however.

Burning potence means losing 5 constant might compared to keeping last charge.
Also, less prot uptime from solace, and if you need to loop Empower's might on staff, you need to cast it twice per swap, so the prot from shield gets delayed. Turns out quickness shouldn't be our only concern when it comes to boons, if it was, the nerf wouldn't be important indeed, just a minor inconvenience. Sadly it's not.

[shib.1369]

57 minutes ago, Hauwlyn.8051 said:

Burning potence means losing 5 constant might compared to keeping last charge.
Also, less prot uptime from solace, and if you need to loop Empower's might on staff, you need to cast it twice per swap, so the prot from shield gets delayed. Turns out quickness shouldn't be our only concern when it comes to boons, if it was, the nerf wouldn't be important indeed, just a minor inconvenience. Sadly it's not.

I've never had a single problem with perma prot and 25 might.

[Hauwlyn.8051]

1 hour ago, shib.1369 said:

I've never had a single problem with perma prot and 25 might.

I guess you must thank your alac then. That or your firebrand can somehow break basic math.

[shib.1369]

42 minutes ago, Hauwlyn.8051 said:

I guess you must thank your alac then. That or your firebrand can somehow break basic math.

Alac helping with might is nothing extraordinary. mech, tempest and mirage give 25 might, specter around 10. The only outlier is renegade. Condi gives around 5 and power none, but both are capable of giving more with heroic command if they want/need to.
   Also there are random sources of might spread around some different dps builds. Scourge, pmech, specter for example. 
   Idk what grandmaster trait you take but I almost always take Stoic Demeanor when I don't have an alac source with high might output. Very easy might coverage then.

Protection is easily sorted with solace + shield 4 and f3 skill 5. You can give even more if you play mace and/or take Lesser Symbol of Protection trait. 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by shib.1369

[Hauwlyn.8051]

1 minute ago, shib.1369 said:

Alac helping with might is nothing extraordinary. mech, tempest and mirage give 25 might, specter around 10.

Specter loops 8, Willbender 0, power alacren can sacrifice some dps to give a little, but don't count on it, condi alacren realistically 6, if we want to be precise. That's plenty you have to fill for. Here's the breakdown again, since apparently you answered the other thread without reading it:
You get 5 from mantra of potence if you don't burn it, otherwise none, and that's the only free part.
Empower gives 9 on the condition that you cast it twice everytime you're on staff. Now, here's the kicker, if you also run empowering might, which on single target will do minimum 5, then your Empower CD is 16s with alac, that means if you cast it twice you do 2 weapon swaps every 32s. Of course, if you also want to cast Shield4 twice when you're on that set you better not have anything delaying your weapon swaps or that cycle will keep stretching.
There, we already sacrificed plenty of flexibility having to do strict cycles and a good trait(honorable staff) just to do 19 reliably, which still isn't enough with palacren or willbender. We're also compromising Prot and Fury uptime for it. Now, I completely agree that you don't need to provide 100% fury no matter who your alac is, that boon is actually free.
Now the next best source of might is using F1-4 and comboing with staff 2, while that could technically do 9 continuous stacks if you camp staff, with swap restrictions and mechanics the realistic expectation is 6. Now we're burning pages, being on a strict cycle and spending most of our casts just outputting boons, forget about anything else a healer might have to do, like heal. Let's not mention the other options for might, they're trash and compound the problem.
 

 

28 minutes ago, shib.1369 said:

Protection is easily sorted with solace + shield 4 and f3 skill 5. Piece of cake.

Prot now? Assuming 100% bd(despite running empowering might so that's generous): shield 4 once every 32s is 25% uptime solace is 4/7.68 = 52% uptime, Protector's Restoration procs every 3 cast of solace, which means 8/23.04 = 34.7%, so if everyone stays in that symbol, you swap as soon as you should just for boons and you sacrifice Invigorated Bulwark we have 111% uptime, not quite the margin in those circumstances. You want to use 2 pages every 20s to give 50%. Great, so not only are we starved for pages now, we don't even use that skill reactively anymore. Let's calculate how much prot uptime we have post nerf assuming that 32s cycle w/ shield4, mantra of solace and Protector's Restoration. shield4 is still 25%, mantra becomes 41.6% and the trait is now 27.7% total 94.3%. You're right, we must either use F3-5 for uptime or run mace.
How many sacrifices is it thus far? How much time spent casting stuff that will only serve boon uptime unless the timing is lucky? We don't have enough margin to time our stuff when it's needed like HAM does with its F2. Here's a reminder of the goals of this patch:

"As we mentioned in the last studio update blog, the primary goals for this update are:

• Improving the feeling of moment-to-moment gameplay for many boon support builds. We want these builds to have more flexibility in their utility skill choice and not be required to activate a particular utility type on cooldown to provide quickness or alacrity."

41 minutes ago, shib.1369 said:

   Also there are random sources of might spread around some different dps builds. Scourge, pmech, specter.

Few dps builds provide group might and fewer provide some that actually loops. It's not free like fury. Neither the numbers nor the logs lie, some alac dps are carrying hfb on boons, which is not remotely a problem the meta heal alac builds have to deal with.

TLDR: The vast majority of HFB get mostly carried on boons by their alac dps, and drop plenty of uptime when they play alongside an alac dps with few extra boons. The reason HFB is the only quick heal meta build is that the others have critical flaws that prevent them from being truly flexible or aren't up to par with heal alac builds, not because HFB is way above the pack.

[Balsa.3951]

IMO they reworked so they can add new e specs easier in the future this seems to be the main goal.

trait decisions becoming less impactfull and so more of a situational choice?

pvp

dh can choose 25% running speed or slow on trap trigger? 

im not sure I kinda was hoping for a long time they would take away cd reduction from traits.

the changes are so extremely basic and will not change much.

but curious from a DH pvp perspective

[Saiyan.1704]

On 6/22/2023 at 3:11 AM, Balsa.3951 said:

IMO they reworked so they can add new e specs easier in the future this seems to be the main goal.

Except Anet literally said they weren't adding any new E-Specs. They did however, say they were changing core class mechanics. So one could argue that this makes way for that but.... I expect such a thing wouldn't go live in idk, 6 months? If ever?

There is not a guarantee we'll see anything new and if we do it won't be anytime soon. Tbh I've moved on to other games 😕

[Brokensunday.4098]

They forogt to give sometihng to the traits they kill with cd reductions  basicaly now are dead traits, but hey lets buff ele....

[Acyk.9671]

On 6/9/2023 at 11:49 PM, Sonork.2916 said:

I like the cooldown reductions.  No seemingly big changes otherwise.   
 

Me too, but they should have made it a separate patch for clarity purpose.

[crazyhusky.2985]

The no cooldown on traits are cool and I don't mind them, but I wish they would give us a reason to take some traits as some feel outdated or useless now.

All 3 minor traits for Dragonhunter don't really do anything, one cripples on disable which it doesn't do much of. another just puts slow on traps and the last one gives you an immob on what is commonly used an escape tool. Basically the choice is between inflicting 1 or 2 weak/minor conditions and an immob on a move you dont really use for offense.

They're not really impactful, They need to redo some of the dragonhunter traits and put some boons or something new somewhere. Just get rid of the "dull sense" trait and something something, Maybe to with longbow. What about adding the dodge the wings trait as you are literally leaping up as if you are dodging something anyway.

[Sonork.2916]

3 minutes ago, crazyhusky.2985 said:

What about adding the dodge the wings trait as you are literally leaping up as if you are dodging something anyway.

Should add an evade to, Wings of Resolve and Heaven's Fist.  Hate being interrupted mid leap and not getting the heal on Wings.  And yeah, many Guardian elite traits do so little it really barely matters.

[crazyhusky.2985]

6 minutes ago, Sonork.2916 said:

Should add an evade to, Wings of Resolve and Heaven's Fist.  Hate being interrupted mid leap and not getting the heal on Wings.  And yeah, many Guardian elite traits do so little it really barely matters.

That's what I was getting at. Dodge and evade same thing,.

Wing of Resolve virtue skill, You are leaping into the air... like a dodge, but No evade on it. I hate that there is no evade on that skill as well. i think everyone has been interrupted mid leap or died mid leap due to the lack of evade on it, Myself included.

Look at the amount evades Ranger and Warrior have on their moves, Both Classes have an evade on their Greatsword leap but for some reason Guardian's Greatsword leap skill doesn't have an evade on it? Ranger has 10 skills with evade on them. 14 if you include the pets.

Guardian's only skill with an evade on it, is WB's Rolling light. They really should give Guardian some evades on the skills that it looks like it's evading. GS3 and WoR need it.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

@WizardBro.4510 You know, necros and mesmers did get "something". And believe you me, you should be thankful you got nothing. In this patch getting nothing is drawing the long straw..

[JDub.1530]

It may not have been the most exciting balance patch for Guardian, but a baseline CDR to pretty much all our utility skills seems like a massive buff.

I haven't analyzed the remaining value of traits without the CDR component, but I suspect several of those traits across all classes have become lackluster, and will probably see a rework, or have some new component added in a later patch (but there were too many for ANet to work on that before this patch).

As for Willbender, while I've only played a few sPvP games with it, so I can't make a full accounting of it's performance there, I've been loving WB since EoD. I have a solid open world build with a good mix of sustain and damage. I have a raid build that puts up great damage numbers. And I have a WvW roaming build I've been having a blast with the past couple months, and even with my pedestrian skill level, I've been able to win 1v1s and even some 1v2s, making great use of the much maligned OH Sword, which is decidedly a competitive game mode weapon only.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Umm u see how druid, necro and war changes went? Be glad...be very glad guard didn't recieve a lot of attention from anet lol.